Astrology Forecast for November 2014

Hear that rush of wind? It’s the collective sigh of relief. October’s intensity is fading ever so slowly. November brings its own richly textured movement and growth, but without the disorientation of sudden endings and groping around in the dark.

Three distinct threads form November’s tapestry. The first thread adds warmth, color and vitality to the mix, as celestial movements stoke the element of fire in the sky and in ourselves. The amplification begins on the 9th, when Venus headbutts Jupiter and encourages wanting what you want, and more of it to boot. The flames roar higher and higher in three big stair steps, as Venus, then the Sun and then Mercury move into adventuresome, high-minded and gregarious Sagittarius.

Each shift ups our energy and movability and bring us back to life from the travails of October. Relationships lighten up, socializing becomes more boisterous and fun, and a generally optimistic atmosphere ignites when Venus moves into Sag on the 16th. The Sun’s shift on the 22, coinciding with the New Moon, ignites the party season. When Mercury follows on the 27th, minds go into jibber-jabber mode, jollity and joking increase, and the impulse rises to travel all over creation.

Against this growing fire, a cosmic clock goes off in the first 12 days of the month that forces clean-up and implementation of last month’s developments and decisions involving the radical restructuring we’ve been undergoing for the past two-plus years. The trigger is Mars, ruler of our drive and ambition, contacting both change agents. He crosses Pluto on the 10th, dealing a death blow to crumbling paradigms and shoving new structures into place. (What transpires now directly links to the possibilities and pressures that burst forth between last Christmas and New Year’s.) Two days later, he demands action from volatile Uranus, and the impact sets off impulsive, explosive, pattern-breaking developments at the very time that Venus is linking with Saturn (about which more below). Watch for an epidemic of leaping into suddenly-serious relationships -- and/or bolting from agreements that previously had no way out.

These two threads weave into a third one, which is thick and firm and has us consolidating energies and testing the work and gains we’ve been experiencing. How solid are your choices? Have you built a foundation with staying power? Any wall or resistance you hit now shows where attention and responsible action is called for.

The testing comes from Saturn, ruler of time and structure, meeting with a sequence of bodies as he wraps up two and a half years in investment-and-return-oriented Scorpio. During this time he’s been in cahoots with the cosmic agent of inescapable change, Pluto. Pluto, in turn, has been , destabilizing our givens and demanding a radical restructuring with Uranus, agent of unforeseeable change. Bottom line (a key concept in all this, by the way): New structures are locking into place that (a) are outgrowths of the turmoil of the last couple of years and (b) promise to last for a very, very, very long time.

Think of this thread as quality control, ensuring that new structures solidify, shape up or finally collapse. It begins with messenger god Mercury moving into Scorpio on the 8th and inclining minds and conversations to intensity and penetrating perceptions. Relationships and financial agreements take the first heat. As Venus joins Saturn on the 12th, situations turn serious. Flirtations, desires and connections move toward unprecedented intimacy, commitment, responsibility and staying power -- or hit a hard and immovable “no.”

When the Sun meets Saturn on the 18th, a similar process affects our view of ourselves. Obligations increase and require maturity, sobriety and, maybe, shedding an outmoded perception or piece of your identity.

By the 25th, our minds and other vehicles (finally) get on board. Major messages land perhaps from sources we consider authorities. Thinking transforms and hits certainty. We know where the walls are, accept them, and embrace maturity, responsibility and commitment. It’ll take Saturn another month to clear out of Scorpio, but we’ll already be pared back, focused and in a real sense purified before his exit. And, pumped by all that Sagittarian activity, happy about it.